Past Quotes
Most people live ninety percent in the past, seven percent in the present, and that only leaves three percent for the future.John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent
This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past.Agathon, from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past.Sophocles, Trachiniae
Forgiveness means letting go of the past.Gerald Jampolsky
Our task is not to fix the blame for the past, but to fix the course for the future.John Fitzgerald Kennedy
We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the past.Madame Chiang
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers (1918) "Prairie".
Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and archive mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement, against that past.George Steine
The future is the past returning through another gate.Arnold Glasgow
The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.George Eliot
Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.Virginia Woolf
The first recipe for happiness is Avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.Andr Maurois
When the present is full of gloom, the past becomes haven of refuge that provides relief and inspiration.Jawahar Lal Neheru
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.Arthur C. Clarke
You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.Jan Glidewell
These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.Vernon Coope
I must not fear. Fear is the mind - Killer. Fear is the little - Death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.Frank Herbert, Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, "Dune".
One day at a time - This is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.Ida Scott Taylor.
Be positive in addressing the envelope to your future, For enclosed are your efforts from the past. Be certain of the postage and double check what class.Unknown
I know of no way to judge the future but by the past.Patrick Henry
As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found - - In himself.Erich Frohm
Nothing that was worthy in the past departs no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.Thomas Carlyle
For there is no greater pain, than to remember in present grief, past happinesses.Dante, The Divine Comedy
God cannot alter the past, but historians can.Samuel Butle
Heal the past, Live the present, Dream the future.Unknown
Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.Demosthenes, First Olynthiac
The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.I Ching
Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past Therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future....Ursala Lequin
Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present - which seldom happens to us.Jean De La Bruyere
Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end results of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.Eric Hoffe
This only is denied to God the power to undo the past.Agathon
Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.Thich Nhat Hanh
Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.Kahlil Gibran, Essay on Robert Frost, quoted in N. Y.. Times: Obit - Editorial, April 1982
It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past...Mikhail Gorbachev, (1988)
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.John Fitzgerald Kennedy
